Hidden Attraction
by Bellephont17
Summary: Five consecutive drabbles. Young Elizabeth idolizes the legendary Captain Jack Sparrow  and young William is plagued by him . Elizabeth goes through emotional turmoil throughout her adventures with the wily captain.
1. Chivalry and Piracy

**Hidden Attraction**

Eleven-year-old Elizabeth Swann sat ramrod straight at her small carved mahogany desk while Ms. Pringle, her English tutor, sat across the room by a lamp, doing petty-point. The huge book of Milton's _Paradise Lost _was propped up on the desk in front of Elizabeth, but she wasn't reading it. Nestled inside the pages of the larger book was a slim volume entitled: _A Chronology of Piracy: Tales of The Most Notable Pirates from the 1500s to the Present_.

"_In a brilliant display of both chivalry and piracy – a combination quite rare among modern scallywags – Jack Sparrow sacked Nassau Port, leaving the bay with his hold bursting with bounty and his pistol without powder stains. He had not fired a single shot." _

"Are you nearly done with that chapter?" Ms. Pringle demanded. "You've been pouring over it for nearly an hour."

"Yes, ma'am," Elizabeth said quickly. "I'm nearly finished."


	2. Make Believe

**Hidden Attraction **

Twelve-year-old William Turner did not want to play pirates again, but he had only to look into her deep chocolaty eyes and suddenly the wish to make Elizabeth happy was all that mattered. "Alright. One more game."

"Wonderful!" Elizabeth positioned herself against Will and brought his makeshift weapon to her throat. "I read more about Jack Sparrow today. Let us pretend that you are Jack and you have kidnapped me."

Will groaned. "I don't want to be Jack Sparrow again. I'm _always _Jack Sparrow. Why can't I just be myself this once?"

"Because you are a _blacksmith_, not a _pirate_."


	3. Shattered Dreams

**Hidden Attraction **

Soaking wet and trying not to shiver, eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Swann stood in front of the legendary Captain Jack Sparrow, her hands clenched. The foundations of her childhood fantasies were crumbling around her, whipped away by the strong Caribbean wind.

"Are you the pirate I've read about or not?"

He didn't answer her. He simply stared, his weary, dark eyes roaming her pale face, his black hair fluttering around his own bronzed complexion. The wind and the dampness pasted his billowing white shirt to his lean form, and his open collar revealed scars against smooth golden skin. This was certainly how she had imagined him.

"How did you escape last time?"

And he told her. For a moment, she was almost willing to take the bottle of rum he slapped into her hand and down it, just to forget she had ever admired the weak-willed scoundrel before her.


	4. Bitter Memories

**Hidden Attraction**

Twenty-two-year-old William Turner watched bleakly as Elizabeth held her tears in check. His own remorse at Jack's passing was nothing compared to the ache he felt when he looked at her. She had loved him, he was certain of it. She always had, even when they were children, preferred Jack to himself.

And the kiss. He supposed that under the circumstances it would have been forgivable, had it been a peck on the cheek or even on the lips. But there was so much passion behind it, a hunger he and Elizabeth had never shared.

Will glanced back up at her, recalling her childhood words. "You are a _blacksmith_, not a _pirate_." And yet still, a single glance into those deep brown eyes and everything he felt faded away into the single and overpowering desire for her happiness.

"If there was any way to bring him back . . ."


	5. A Transformation

**Hidden Attraction**

Although she was eager to board the small boat and row toward that dream-like shoreline where she knew Will was waiting, twenty-year-old Elizabeth Swann forced herself to stop and linger before the man who stood before her.

He was nowhere near as beautiful as he had been on that island when they had been marooned. He had aged, not in years, but in other ways less determinable. He was shrunken – instead of standing with his head up, he leaned against the rail, his spine curled and his expression sheepish. He was bedraggled, worn out.

But there was something he had now that he had been lacking then. Something that made up for all the childhood illusions dashed to pieces. Captain Jack Sparrow might not have been the great and heroic pirate she had read about, but he was something more. He was human. And he had given Elizabeth her dreams back – in the form of a broken sword through a monstrous heart at his own expense, in the form of the awaiting dinghy dangling beyond the rail, and in the form of the man waiting on the shore beyond.

"Thank you."


End file.
